Socio-economic effects

As for the socio-economic effects, and the potential mid- to long-term effects, the dissemination and educational activities will be key to unlocking these. They will aim at increasing knowledge and awareness of the habitats among tourists and the local community.

A specific action will be devoted to assessing the socio-economic impact on the local community and the impact of the eco-systemic services on the eco-system. This will be performed by calculating the difference between the situations expected before the project and the actual ones measured after the project. Also, the project will include a qualitative assessment of the its impact on the key stakeholders, and the final beneficiaries in the local communities, who will be interviewed.

The project’s socio-economic benefits can be summarised as follows:
• Direct increase in employment: new technical and administrative posts will be created by the project in order to carry out the various actions, in the partner communities and in the main beneficiary community.
• Indirect increase in employment: the project has budgeted for circa 500,000 Euro in outsourced work. This will increase the workload of the companies and consultants that will be selected, creating jobs in the environmental sector, hence skilled and future proof occupations.
• Increased awareness of the value of the area’s natural capital in the local community, as its positive impact is both local and global. The local community’s perception of the value of the territory will improve through inclusive consultative actions in the area. Stakeholders, administrators, owners and citizens will be better informed about the habitat. This approach will increase awareness and pride towards the real value added of the habitats in the area, something that is all too often considered unattractive.
• Networking between the area of intervention/ cooperative support: even in the planning stage the project consolidates the partnership between several public bodies that worked together in the PROVIDUNE project. The operative network will extend to include stakeholders and local citizens. Relationships with partners working on the same issues in other parts of Europe will further consolidate.
• Local visibility and attraction: local communication activities (roundtables, events, panel talks, website) will give greater visibility to the Sardinian territory, its habitats and its public bodies, thus making it more attractive. The tourism industry and ecosystemic services linked to tourism will surely develop and could generate further business for the resident community.